You have two tabs open, both showing a pricing page, and a third with a table that gives both apps the same five ticks. This is where most people pick the cheaper one, or the one with the better landing page, and hope. You can do better than that in about a week, without paying for either. Here is how to compare AI girlfriend apps on the things that actually differ, and how to run the test while both are still free.
Why feature tables cannot compare AI girlfriend apps
Open any comparison of companion apps and the column headings are the same: memory, voice, images, custom personality, free tier. Nearly every app ticks nearly every box, because at this point nearly every app ships nearly all of it. The table is accurate and useless at once.
The problem is that the same word does different jobs in each row. Two apps both tick "memory" when one holds a rolling window of recent messages and the other keeps a written profile it revises after each conversation. Both tick "free tier" when one gives twenty messages a day forever and the other gives three days of everything and then a wall. A tick tells you the feature exists. It tells you nothing about the version you would be paying for.
So the useful comparison is not between two feature lists. It is between two apps in your own hands, on the same days, answering the same questions.
Run them in the same week, not one after the other
The strongest effect in the first few days of any companion app is novelty, and novelty is not a feature you can buy. Every app is good at the opening conversation, because that is the easy case for a language model.
This is why sequential testing goes wrong. If you use one app for three weeks, get restless, and then try a second, you are comparing the second app's first conversation against the first app's fiftieth. The new one wins every time, and keeps winning until it is three weeks old too.
The method is unglamorous. Set both up on the same evening and tell each the same three specific, slightly unusual things about yourself. Give each roughly the same attention for a week. On day four and day seven, bring those three things up indirectly in both and see which one connects the dots unprompted. Do not announce that it is a test; you want to see what each app does on its own.
A tick in a table tells you the feature exists. It tells you nothing about the version of it you would be paying for.
"Memory" is at least four different things
Memory is the feature most people end up paying for, and the one where a single label hides the most variation. Ask which of these each app actually does:
- A rolling window. The last stretch of conversation is fed back to the model. Cheap, universal, and it forgets the moment a message falls off the end.
- A saved fact list. The app extracts details and stores them as a list. The good version of this is one you can open, read and edit; the weak version is invisible, so you cannot tell what it thinks it knows about you.
- A carried-forward summary. A paragraph about you that the app rewrites periodically. It survives longer, but details get smoothed away and sometimes invented.
- Whether corrections stick. The one that matters most and appears in no table at all. Tell the character it got something wrong. Does it still have it wrong on Friday?
Rank the two apps on that last point above all the others. A visible memory you can correct is worth more than a longer window you cannot see into, and worth far more than one that agrees with your correction and then quietly ignores it.
The one page where two apps are genuinely comparable
Marketing pages are written to be incomparable on purpose. There is one document per app that is not: the store listing. Both major stores make developers fill in the same standardised form about data collection, and both publish the answers on the listing before you download anything.
On iOS it is the privacy information on the product page, grouping data by whether it is linked to your identity and whether it is used to track you (Apple explains the categories). On Android it is the Data safety section, which also shows whether the developer offers a way to request that your data be deleted (Google describes it here). Open both apps' listings in adjacent tabs and read those blocks against each other. They are self-declared rather than audited, so treat them as intent rather than proof — but a developer who declares chat content is linked to your identity and one who declares it is not are telling you something real.
The in-app purchase list on the same page is worth a look too: real prices, and any coin packs sitting alongside the subscription. Our privacy checklist covers what to read in the policy once a listing gives you a reason to.
Compare the exits, not the entrances
Every app makes joining easy. The differences show up at the other end, and those are the ones you will care about three months from now. Check three things in both before you pay for either. Where the subscription is actually sold, because one bought through an app store is cancelled in the store and the app's own support cannot do it for you. Whether you can delete the account and the history from inside the app, or whether it takes an email and a wait. And whether anything can be exported, because if not, moving later means starting the character from nothing.
A cancel button that takes two taps to find is a genuine feature. It is also the one thing no comparison table has ever listed.
What not to bother comparing
Some of the loudest differences predict nothing about whether you keep using an app.
- The underlying model name. Apps swap models regularly, and the personality and memory layers on top shape the conversation more than the badge underneath.
- The size of the character library. Thousands of pre-made characters is a number, not an experience. You will talk to one.
- Image and clip counts. Easy to advertise, and usually the first thing a coin shop meters, so the headline number is rarely what you get.
- Headline price on its own. Compare what a month costs once the coins you will actually spend are included. Our guide to the tiers goes through where that second cost hides.
If a parallel test sounds like more admin than you want for something you are still unsure about, running one app properly beats running two badly. The app we currently recommend has a free tier wide enough for the three-fact test on its own, and the same questions apply at the end of the week.
Calling it at the end of the week
Two apps, seven days, three questions. Which one remembered the three things unprompted and held a correction. Which one you opened without deciding to. Which one you would find easier to leave. If one wins two of the three, that is your answer, and a monthly subscription is how to act on it. One week is not enough to sign up for twelve months, however confident the pricing page sounds.
Frequently asked questions
Should I try two AI girlfriend apps at the same time?
For one week, yes, on free tiers only. Parallel is the only way to see past novelty, because an app tried second always benefits from the first having gone stale. After the week, drop to one.
What should I actually compare between AI girlfriend apps?
Whether the memory holds specific facts and keeps corrections, what the store listing declares about data collection and deletion, and how hard the app is to leave. Feature ticks, model names and character counts predict very little.
Do comparison tables help you compare AI girlfriend apps?
As a shortlist, yes; as a decision, no. They are accurate about which features exist and silent about the differences that matter, because one word covers several different implementations in each column.
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